How to use the document editor

(Author: Charles)

Some hints and tips

More information about the document editor

So, let's assume you've logged in (the message at the top of the page will tell you that you have done so). Now you can click on the "Create Document" button (just to the left) and put in a title, subtitle, and the author's name. This visible author name may be different from your login name, and indeed you might be posting on behalf of someone else who doesn't have internet access. Please ensure that you have the right to post whatever you write.

Select a category for the document. A range of categories are available, and I will add more if anyone thinks of useful ones. Email me by clicking on the "Contact us" button above, if you would like a new category created.

Now click on "Start writing now", and you'll be taken to a text editor where you can write your document. This document you're reading is one of them.

Tricks for improving your documents

There are a number of niceties available to smarten up your document. As well as all the usual heading levels, bold, italic and so on, you can insert horizontal rules in your document (like the one above), and you can create quotes like this one:

There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.
George W Bush

How did I do that? Well, if you start a line with [Quote], all the rest of that line and subsequent lines will be shown as quoted text. At the end of the quotation, start a line with [Endquote] and the rest of that final line is treated as the source of the quote. Easy!

Figure 1: A very nice Meccano Model

Now, even cleverer, we can add pictures. The picture shown to the right is referenced from the NZMeccano Gallery. While you're editing a document, click on the "Insert Image" button. Instead of typing in the name of an image, type in the gallery reference number (you can see this by looking at the image number at the very top of your browser). The image will be called something like "....image-99999" The final "99999" is the reference number -- in the case of the car above it is 25. Click on the picture of the car and you'll see it come up in a separate window, which will let you see the picture full size if you like. Notice the "...-25" at the end of the title bar at the top.

A tiny picture!

You can add a title to the image (like the one shown above), and you can choose whether it sits to the left or right, or how big it appears if you like. Here it is again, on the left-hand side like a tiny thumbnail. It's still perfectly visible this small, and your readers can click on it to bring the enlarged image up in another window. Perfect!

You can also create links to anywhere else on the web (decent links only please!), such as this one here to the Photo Gallery.

For each document you write, everyone else can leave replies and comments (using the form below, like all through the rest of the site). You might later on want to include some of those comments by re-editing your document.

Try it and see!

Authorising documents

I'm not sure what's going to happen here, and so I've implemented a basic "approval" procedure. When you create a new document, only you can see it. Everyone else won't be able to see it until it is "approved" by the webmasters. Please note that this is only to prevent abuse of the site, illegal, objectional, or abusive material and so on being posted. We will certainly not block documents just because we don't agree with them.

When we know who you are (or indeed if we already do! :-)), we can flag you as a 'trusted' user, which means that documents you create will be automatically approved as soon as you write them.

I hope this is a reasonable way to protect the site and doesn't get in anyone's way.

Conan Lynch (at 10:28am, Mon 26th May, 14)

Can't register / use password / login

OldBlueGold (at 2:53pm, Sun 19th Feb, 12)

1) In my efforts to create a document, before receiving your advice (see above) I managed to create two blank documents in my "Mine" folder. Is it possible to delete them? Or should I wait until inspiration arrives again and turn them into new documents?
2) Having perfected my masterpiece "Getting Old" I pressed the button "publish" about a week ago. Nothing has happend since, it is still unauthorised. Have I committed a dreadful sin somewhere in the text or is it just that the wheels grind slowly (like me these days).

Reply: Old ones deleted, new one published, and you have been set as a "trusted" author. The only reason I have this system is to prevent spammers creating junk or dangerous documents. As soon as I know who you are and what you're writing I'm happy for things to be published immediately!

Old Blue Gold (at 2:16pm, Mon 13th Feb, 12)

Is it possible to start a document, save it, sign off and then come back to finish it next day? There seems to be no way of retrieving a partially written document. Perhaps it can only be done by writing it somewwwhere else and copying it in.

Reply: Yes, if you look at the bottom left under the existing documents is a "View... Mine" option. When you view only your own documents, you can see work-in-progress ones. It is a bit hidden, I should document that better. You can always get to your own documents by remembering the URL in your browser as well.

Stephen Brook (at 1:43pm, Sat 17th Apr, 10)

I am trying to create a document on barreling - to expand on the images and descriptions within my section of the user gallery.
Unfortunately, I seem to be unable to add images to the document. On clicking the image button in the editor, a window appears asking for a URL. Typing the image number has no effect. I am using Google Chrome, but the same thing happened with my previous document using Internet Explorer. What am I doing wrong ?

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